Marketing Advice

In our first
SEO on-page article we talked about how to take advantage of long-tail keywords. Now we want to dig down into what we need to optimize a website page.

The first part is to make sure you write around the long-tail key phrase you researched. Make sure that it is a unique key word for your site (you haven't used before).

Page title: Add your keyword to your page title. Remember you have 72 characters that can appear in your page title so use them. Also, bear in mind that search engines weight the words at the front of your title more heavily than the ones towards the end.

Your key phrase should also be included in your page slug and URL as well.

Content: Makes sure that your key phrase is in the first part of the page. Placement of the keyword near the top is different from traditional writing where you lead up more to your topic. Writing SEO optimized copy is more similar to scientific writing vs. prose.

You should also mention your key phrase through the copy as appropriate we must caution against “keyword stuffing” or using the key phrase unnaturally.
Remember you are not just writing for SEO but for a real human audience you want to persuade to act. This can be easy to forget when you try to create “perfect SEO” but getting your audience to the page is only part of the battle. Getting them to act is winning the war.

Note: If it comes down to ticking a box for SEO or writing better always lean towards better writing.

Another component of your content is to make sure that you have over 300 words on your page. More is better to a certain extent as long as it is all engaging content.

Headings: You should use your key phrase in your headings. Not necessarily all your headings, (remember you have two audiences). A good place to add your key word is in an H2 heading.

Links: The internet is a connected ecosystem so remember to add internal links as appropriate. For instance to a related blog article or a call to action to the next step you want your visitor to make.

Image: You should chose an image or images that help engage your readers. However, you should also use an alt description that includes your keyword.

Meta description: The meta description is a synopsis of your page. In search engine results it is below the page title.

In WordPress, you can edit your meta description beneath the page copy. However, different themes and plugins can affect the location. Depending on what program you use to build your website it lives in different places.

You should keep your meta description below 160 characters and remember to build the synopsis around your chosen key phrase.

On-page SEO is one of the easiest parts of your SEO strategy to nail. However, because of the ease, it can be easy to ignore.

First of all, what is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimization. We, marketers, love our abbreviations. SEO is an important part of your overall inbound marketing strategy.

For instance, when you put a search term in Google the algorithm is deciding what you want based on the words that you’ve entered. If your page pops up first for a search, you can bet you nailed your on-page SEO.

Proper on-page SEO is valuable because it lets you effectively tell the search engines about your page. It also works to help draw people to your site.

Here is the first few thing to focus on to have proper page specific SEO.

Search engines determine what a blog or website page are about from keywords. For instance, if you write a page about "material handling space saving in Charlotte" then you are more likely to rank higher on Google for those keywords.

However, I find that a lot of companies try to rank for simple keywords instead of "long-tail keywords."

Let me illustrate.

A few years ago I was talking to a business owner about his website. It was a financial services business, and he wanted to increase organic traffic. For the sake of anonymity let's say his name was Mike.

What is Inbound Marketing? And why do we spend so much time talking about it? In a nutshell, the inbound strategy is a holistic, data-driven approach to marketing that attracts companies and converts them into lasting customers.

Wow, that is a mouthful. Another way to describe it is smart content marketing plus software automation.

OK, so how does it work? There is a four prong process to execute this strategy.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard, read or said, “Content is King”…well let’s say the pool in my backyard would not be stamped “Disney.” I mean content creation is important, right?

Marketers keep wandering around in circles reminding each other that content is king, but we haven’t really explained why we say that to our customers. We just accept it, nod to each other satisfied, go off and create. Create what? You guessed it more content.

A lot of people ignore the usefulness of SEO to market their business. They want to just rely on word of mouth or advertising or whatever "magic bullet" they have. The truth is there is no magic bullet. Use all the tools you can and reap the benefits is the much better option.

So why do I want to to make your site my search engine friendly;? The truth is that your website has 2 different types of traffic coming to it. Branded and Organic.

How many people do you think are searching for, oh I don’t know, "366 marketing website design" and how many just search "website design rock hill sc"? My guess is more people are just searching website design Rock hill sc. They clearly don’t know how awesome I am. (Why aren't you telling them?)